Tighter internal borders and a more robust online counter-terrorism approach need to be implemented following a string of terrorist attacks in Europe, EU ministers have said. [ Ссылка ] #islam #terror #terrorists #TerrorAttack #Austria #ViennaAttack #vienna #EU #europe #EuropeanUnion #european

EU interior ministers on Friday (13 November), promised a coordinated crackdown on Islamist extremism after last month’s attacks in Paris, Nice and Vienna, as the bloc walks a fine line between tackling the threat of terror attacks and stigmatizing its Muslim communities.

The interior ministers of the 27-nation bloc issued a joint anti-terrorism statement after a meeting on Friday, the fifth anniversary of the France terrorist attacks of 2015 in which 130 people were killed.

Measures to combat terrorist content and hate speech online would be agreed upon by the end of the year to enable issuing orders for removing material “within an hour or less of its being reported,” they said. The statement referred to the killing of French teacher Samuel Paty – whose use of Prophet Mohammed cartoons in free speech lessons sparked backlash online – as showing the importance of combatting “online illegal content, terrorism propaganda, hate speech and disinformation.”

Ministers said they are also working on improving the monitoring of convicted terrorists, such as Kujtim Fejzullai, the Vienna attacker who killed four people. He was sentenced last year for trying to join Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) in Syria and released from prison early

The statement added: “We want to strengthen and further develop options for security measures within the Schengen area as well as instruments for cross-border law enforcement cooperation.”

Ministers also called for more funding for law enforcement agency Europol in order to provide it with a stronger mandate in intelligence.

The summit of interior ministers comes after recent terrorist attacks in Paris, Dresden, Conflans-Saint-Honorine, Nice and Vienna. “These are attacks on our common European values and on our fundamental rights,” European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson said at a press conference after the meeting on Friday.

This week, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke in favor of reform to Schengen – the free movement zone of 26 European countries.

“In the end, all interior ministers adopted a joint declaration on the recent attacks in Europe,” said German interior minister Horst Seehofer said after the meeting. “It’s a great sign of cohesion and solidarity,” he added, speaking alongside EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson.

In their joint statement, ministers agreed to finalize negotiations on regulations for faster removal of online terrorist content by the end of this year.

“The aim is to enable issuing removal orders with cross-border effect to create a new and rapid and effective instrument to counter terrorist content online within an hour or less of its being reported while maintaining effective safeguards for the protection of fundamental rights,” the statement read.

Before the meeting, Seehofer had stated that in the fight against terrorism, investigators must also be able to access encrypted communication.

“Personally, I am in favour of us making use of all the intelligence services that are theoretically available to us,” he told reporters.

Earlier this week, mooted plans to ban the secure encryption of messages on channels such as WhatsApp caused outrage by civil rights and data protection activists and were toned down in the final ministerial statement.

External borders and police cooperation

While ministers said border security would remain the responsibility of member states, they backed efforts to build coordinated EU security databases.

They also agreed to reinforce the EU’s external borders as “the competent authorities need to know who enters the Schengen area and who travels within it.”

“We must effectively control our external borders, record entries and departures from the Schengen area in digital form, and cooperate more closely with third countries in order to combat terrorist threats,” they said.

There is a need to “strengthen and further develop options for security measures within the Schengen area as well as instruments for cross-border law enforcement cooperation” by continuing “with the implementation of European legislation on the new databases and interoperability of our databases”, ministers said.

Additionally, there are also ideas for a strengthened role and more powers for the EU’s police agency, Europol, in sharing intelligence between member states.

Johansson announced that the European Commission intends to present an action plan to combat terrorism at the beginning of December.

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